George Bush - Torturer in Chief

by soccerdad

ScotusBlog, Talkleft, and Balkanization are all discussing very important lagugage in Bush's signing statement of the Defense Bill. I feel this is extremely important and needs to be spread to as many outlets as possible.

The language in question concerns the use of torture and the desire to stop Supreme Court consideration of 2 habeus cases. Basically there are two very important issues here, first the continued use of torture as sanctioned by the president and secondly the further accumulation of power by Bush. The first is despicable and the second is truly scary to those of us who value the system of checks and balances.

I will not repeat the analysis performed by the experts but let me give you a flavor of what they are saying. With regards to the president's ability to sanction torture:

Translation: I reserve the constitutional right to waterboard when it will "assist" in protecting the American people from terrorist attacks. [UPDATE: Or, as Matthew Franck eagerly puts it over at the National Review, "the signing statement . . . conveys the good news that the president is not taking the McCain amendment lying down."]

[snip]

Second, the President unsurprisingly signals that the Administration reads the Graham Amendments to cut off currently pending habeas cases, including most importantly the Hamdan case that's now before the Supreme Court and the Al Odah case (Rasul on remand) that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has under review:

Link

I urge everyone to read the original blogs on this important issue.

Here are some quotes of George Bush which seem timely;

"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier...just as long as I'm the dictator..."
--Washington, DC, Dec 18, 2000, during his first trip to Washington as President-Elect

"You don't get everything you want. A dictatorship would be a lot easier."
George Bush Describing what it's like to be governor of Texas.

(Governing Magazine 7/98)

"A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it."

(Business Week, July 30, 2001)